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How to Die

A Field Guide

By Shoshana Berger and BJ Miller

E-Book

£P.O.R.

A beautiful meditation on death as well as an actionable guide to all the logistics surrounding the end of a life - Being Mortal meets When Breath Becomes Air.

The end of a life can often feel like a traumatic, chaotic and inhuman experience. In this reassuring and inspiring book, palliative care physician Dr BJ Miller and writer Shoshana Berger provide a vision for rethinking and navigating this universal process.

There are plenty of self-help books for mourners, but nothing in the way of a modern, approachable and above all useful field guide for the living. And all of us - young, old, sick and well - could use the help. After all, pregnant couples have ample resources available to them as they prepare to bring a new life into the world: Lamaze courses, elaborate birth plans, tons of manuals. Why don't we have a What to Expect When You're Expecting to Die book?

An accessible, beautifully designed and illustrated companion, How to Die offers a clear-eyed and compassionate survey of the most pressing issues that come up when one is dying, and will bring optimism and practical guidance to empower readers with the knowledge, resources and tools they'll need to die better, maybe even with triumph.

Biographical Notes

BJ Miller (Author) Dr. BJ Miller, Jr. is a hospice and palliative care specialist. He is an assistant professor of clinical medicine at UCSF where he attends on the Symptom Management Service at UCSF's Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Center, one of the first community-based palliative care programs in the country. He is also a long-time director of the Zen Hospice Project, a pioneering hospice organization in San Francisco. BJ is a native of Chicago. He studied art history as an undergraduate at Princeton University. He worked for several years for art and disability-rights nonprofit organizations before earning a medical degree at UCSF. He completed an internal medicine residency at Cottage Hospital in Santa Barbara, where he was chief resident, and a fellowship in Hospice and Palliative Medicine at Harvard Medical School, working at the Massachusetts General Hospital and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. In his work, he connects humanism and medicine in end-of-life and upstream palliative care.

Other details

ISBN:
9781786484802

Publication date:
10 Jan 2019

Page count:

Imprint:
Quercus

MacLehose Press

The Dance of Death

Oliver Bottini

Authors:

Oliver Bottini

One wet and misty weekend in October, the Niemann family find a stranger in their garden. He is armed and tries to force his way into the house, but disappears as soon as the police are alert the police. That night he's back with an impossible ultimatum . . .Freiburg detective Louise Boni and her colleagues are put under enormous pressure. Traces of evidence lead her to a no-man's-land, and to a ruthless criminal who brings with him the trauma of conflict in the Balkans.

Home-Grown

Joan Smith

The Carrier

Mattias Berg

Authors:

Mattias Berg

The man with the nuclear briefcase has gone rogue - Mission Impossible meets the Hunt for Red October in an explosive new thriller for fans of James Swallow and Tom Clancy"I don't think I have read such a philosophical, knowledge-studded and realistic adventure novel since Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose" Göteborgs-PostenErasmus Levine has a job like no other. He travels with the President of the United States at all times, and holds in his hands the power to obliterate life as we know it. He is the man with the nuclear briefcase, part of a crack team of top-secret operatives established after 9/11 and led by a man codenamed Edelweiss. But even Edelweiss does not know the identity of their ultimate authority, known only as Sysboss.Levine has a secret.For twelve years he has been receiving cryptic messages from Sysboss - an elaborate communication that began with the words We two against the world. Slowly but surely, Levine begins thinking of escape. His chance comes during an official visit to Sweden, when the alarm sounds in Stockholm's Grand Hotel.But Sysboss has other plans for him. From their first meeting in a network of tunnels and bunkers beneath the city, Levine is drawn into a plan to eliminate the world's nuclear arsenals. But how can he be sure that controlled demolition is the endgame? Could he be working towards a controlled apocalypse, a doomsday plot to wipe humanity from the face of the earth?Translated from the Swedish by George Goulding

An Ocean of Minutes

Thea Lim

Authors:

Thea Lim

A devastating and timely novel about courage, yearning, the cost of holding onto the past - and the price of letting it go. 'The clear-eyed, evocative writing here is reminiscent of Margaret Atwood, and anyone familiar with The Handmaid's Tale will find resonance in these pages... a devastating debut'Toronto Star'An Ocean Of Minutes absolutely swept me away' Red MagazinePolly and Frank are young and in love, a lifetime together before them. But one evening in 1980, as the Texas sun sets over their shoulders, the world is suddenly pulled apart by a deadly virus. Within months, Frank is dying. Polly can save him, but only if she agrees to a radical plan: to time travel to 1993 for a corporation who can fund his life-saving treatment. She can only go forward, she cannot go back. And she must leave everything she loves behind, including Frank.All they have is the promise of a future together: they will find each other again in twelve years' time, in Galveston, Texas, where the sea begins.But when something goes wrong and Polly arrives late, Frank is nowhere to be found. Completely alone, Polly must navigate a terrifying new world to find him, and to discover if their love has endured.'A profound meditation on the inhumanity of class and the limits of love... This is a story about the malleability of time, but at its core lives something timeless'Omar El Akkad, author of American War'Strikingly imaginative... unlike anything I've ever read, rich with pinpoint emotional insight and fierce, vivid observations about a future that's already our past' Elan Mastai, author of All Our Wrong Todays'A buoyant, compelling tale ranging from the everyday beauty of falling in love to a frightening vision of a dystopian present day... boundless and dynamic'Jennie Melamed, author of Gather the Daughters 'An Ocean of Minutes offers that rare combination of a provocative speculative setting, masterfully elegant writing, and a story that moves and haunts long after the last page'David Chariandy, author of Brother

When Death Takes Something From You Give It Back

Naja Marie Aidt

The Night Tiger

Yangsze Choo

Authors:

Yangsze Choo

A captivating and magical story set in 1930s Malaysia about a dancehall girl and an orphan boy who are brought together by a series of unexplained deaths and an old Chinese superstition about men who turn into tigers.They say a tiger that devours too many humans can take the form of a man and walk amongst us... In 1930s colonial Malaya, a dissolute British doctor receives a surprise gift of an eleven-year-old Chinese houseboy. Sent as a bequest from an old friend, young Ren has a mission: to find his dead master's severed finger and reunite it with his body. Ren has forty-nine days, or else his master's soul will roam the earth forever. Ji Lin, an apprentice dressmaker, moonlights as a dancehall girl to pay her mother's debts. One night, Ji Lin's dance partner leaves her with a gruesome souvenir that leads her on a crooked, dark trail. As time runs out for Ren's mission, a series of unexplained deaths occur amid rumours of tigers who turn into men. In their journey to keep a promise and discover the truth, Ren and Ji Lin's paths will cross in ways they will never forget.Captivating and lushly written, The Night Tiger explores the rich world of servants and masters, ancient superstition and modern ambition, sibling rivalry and unexpected love. Woven through with Chinese folklore and a tantalizing mystery, this novel is a page-turner of the highest order.

A Long Night in Paris

Dov Alfon

Bloodline

Nigel McCrery

Authors:

Nigel McCrery

From the creator of BBC drama Silent Witness, comes the gripping sixth instalment in the acclaimed DCI Mark Lapslie series.When Isabel, a British university student, travels to a remote Spanish town it isn't only to enjoy the atmosphere. It's also to trace how and why her family name might have derived from the town, a quest her father, Sebastian made nine years ago, not long before his death in a car accident. But as Isabel, aided by local guide Mauricio, starts digging into her family's possible links with Alarcon, she's unprepared for the dark secrets uncovered; secrets that the current ruling nobility of Alarcon are keen to keep buried.Ten days into her stay in Alarcon, Isabel mysteriously disappears, presumed dead. Inspector Mark Lapslie and DC Emma Bradbury are sent out to investigate alongside the local Spanish police. A possible gangland link is suspected - Isabel's stepfather in Valencia is a retired British gangster and a mob-hitman from Malaga is identified in Alarcon at the time of Isabel's disappearance. But Mauricio, suspects the Mayor's son, Dario, is the real culprit - to uncover the truth, Lapslie and Bradbury must delve into the murky, chequered past of Isabel's gangland stepfather while also following in her footsteps through Alarcon's dark and tempestuous history.

Darling Blue

Tracy Rees

Authors:

Tracy Rees

Blue lives a charmed life. From her family's townhouse in Richmond, she lives a life of luxury and couldn't want for anything - well, on the surface at least. Then on the night of her twenty-first birthday her father makes a startling toast: he will give his daughter's hand to whichever man can capture her heart best in the form of a love letter. But Blue has other ideas and, unwilling to play at her father's bewildering games, she sets out on her own path to find her own destiny...'Tracy Rees writes from the heart' Kathryn Hughes, author of The Letter. Perfect for fans of The Keeper of Lost Things and The Villa in Italy.

Greeks Bearing Gifts

Philip Kerr

Authors:

Philip Kerr

Bernie Gunther returns in the thirteenth book in the Sunday Times and New York Times bestselling series, perfect for fans of John le Carre and Robert Harris.'One of the greatest anti-heroes ever written' LEE CHILD'Kerr leads us through the facts of history and the vagaries of human nature' TOM HANKS'One of the greatest master story-tellers in English' ALAN FURST1957, Munich. Bernie Gunther's latest move in a string of varied careers sees him working for an insurance company. It makes a kind of sense: both cops and insurance companies have a vested interest in figuring out when people are lying to them, and Bernie has a lifetime of experience to call on.Sent to Athens to investigate a claim from a fellow German for a sunken ship, Bernie takes an instant dislike to the claimant. When he discovers the ship in question once belonged to a Greek Jew deported to Auschwitz, he is convinced the sinking was no accident but an act of vengeance. And so Bernie is once again drawn inexorably back to the dark history of the Second World War, and the deportation of the Jews of Salonika - now Thessaloniki. As Europe prepares to move on to a more united future with Germany as a partner rather than an enemy, at least one person in Greece is ready neither to forgive nor forget. And, deep down, Bernie thinks they may have a point.

Inhuman Resources

Pierre Lemaitre

Authors:

Pierre Lemaitre

Alain Delambre is a 57-year-old former HR executive, drained by four years of hopeless unemployment.All he is offered are small, demoralizing jobs. He has reached his very lowest ebb, and can see no way out.So when a major company finally invites him to an interview, Alain Delambre is ready to do anything, borrow money, shame his wife and his daughters and even participate in the ultimate recruitment test: a role-playing game that involves hostage-taking.Alain Delambre commits body and soul in this struggle to regain his dignity.But if he suddenly realised that the dice had been loaded against him from the start, his fury would be limitless.And what began as a role-play game could quickly become a bloodbath.

Get Smart: Maths

Julia Collins

A Summer of Murder

Oliver Bottini

The Lizard Strategy

Valerio Varesi

Authors:

Valerio Varesi

Italy's Maigret returns in another smouldering noir from a master of the police procedural "A master storyteller" Barry Forshaw, IndependentParma is blanketed in snow, but this pristine, white veneer cannot mask the stench of corruption. Its officials are no longer working for its people - only for themselves - crime is out of control and resentment festers in every district. Commissario Soneri remains at heart an idealist, so the state of Parma wounds him more than most. And now he is presented with three mysteries at once, each more impenetrable than the last. In a river creek on the outskirts of the city, tipped off by a local, he finds a mobile phone that rings through the night but holds no data; an elderly patient with senile dementia is reported missing from a hospice; and the mayor of Parma, who was reported as taking a holiday on the ski slopes, has disappeared off the face of the earth - just when he seemed certain to be implicated in a seismic corruption scandal at city hall.

The Brain in Minutes

Rita Carter

Not That Kind of Love

Clare Wise, Greg Wise

Zen and the Art of Murder

Oliver Bottini

Authors:

Oliver Bottini

** NOW LONGLISTED FOR THE CWA INTERNATIONAL DAGGER 2018 **The first in a gripping new crime series set in Germany - the Black Forest Investigations Louise Boni, maverick chief inspector with the Black Forest crime squad, is struggling with her demons. Divorced at forty-two, she is haunted by the shadows of the past. Dreading yet another a dreary winter weekend alone, she receives a call from the departmental chief which signals the strangest assignment of her career - to trail a Japanese monk wandering through the snowy wasteland to the east of Freiburg, dressed only in sandals and a cowl. She sets off reluctantly, and by the time she catches up with him, she discovers that he is injured, and fearfully fleeing some unknown evil. When her own team comes under fire, the investigation takes on a terrifying dimension, uncovering a hideous ring of child traffickers. The repercussions of their crimes will change the course of her own life.Oliver Bottini is a fresh and exciting voice in the world of crime fiction in translation; the Rhine borderlands of the Black Forest are a perfect setting for his beautifully crafted mysteries.Translated from the German by Jamie Bulloch

Snakehead

Peter May

Histories

Sam Guglani

Authors:

Sam Guglani

'Guglani is the real deal' Michel Faber'Profound . . . Poetic . . . Humane' Gabriel Weston'Shows rare skill . . . Power and fear and morality' Sarah Moss, author of The Tidal Zone'Tender . . . designed to break your heart, mend it, then break it all over again' Rory Gleeson, author of Rockadoon ShoreHistories is a hypnotic portrait of life in one hospital, over one week. In the corridors and consulting rooms, by the bedside, through the open curtain, we witness charged encounters within the emotional and physical world of medicine. Old insecurities surface as junior doctors try to save a man from dying; an enraged chaplain picks a fight with a consultant; a porter waxes lyrical on his invisibility. These are only some of the stories that so seamlessly connect, collide and create an unforgettable panorama of being. Sam Guglani's vivid prose has the raw intensity of poetry that pulls the reader in on every page.